Cypress Semiconductor may set up unit in India

BANGALORE : The $1-billion San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor is looking at India to set up a fabrication unit. The company has made some inquires for a manufacturing facility for its SunPower business.

A fab is an expensive proposition. We have already invested $100 million in our Philippines plant and expect to invest another $200 million by its completion, Mr T J Rodgers, founder president and CEO, Cypress Semi Conductor, said here recently. The plants current capacity of 25 megawatts is proposed to be increased to about 100 megawatts, he stated.

If a facility is set up in India , it would be the companys second unit in Asia . It would be driven by the rapid rural electrification in the country, with solar energy seen as a useful solution for rural and inaccessible areas.

SunPower Philippines , a branch of SunPower , USA , is a majority owned subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor and manufactures silicon solar cells. SunPowers technology is also being applied to the manufacture of a wide variety of silicon opto-electronic devices for telecommunications and industrial applications.

This move towards an Indian fab is part of a larger expansion in India for Cypress . Mr Rodgers also announced that the company would nearly double headcount across its development centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad from 165 to 315. Employee numbers at the Hyderabad centre, set up last year, will go up from two to 42, with the Bangalore centre set up nearly a decade ago, accounting for the remaining additions.

The firm has already invested $20 million in its subsidiary, Cypress India , and plans to increase this by another $5 million, which includes the funds for a new facility in Bangalore .  Cypress India has proven its value to the corporation... our teams here continuously showcase their abilities to define, design, debug and deploy products, Mr Rodgers said. Cypress India has worked on a wide variety of solutions including network search engines, universal serial bus controllers and complex memories. Cypress s most complex chip, the Packet over Sonet Integrated Circuit (POSIC), with over 15 million transistors, was designed by the India centre. The Indian team has compiled over 60 patents and over quarter of Cypress  design talent works in India or is of Indian nationality.

Other than its captive engineering centres, Cypress also plans to expand its engagement with Wipro, which began in May 2003. Wipro has set up a dedicated centre for Cypress that focuses on the development of solutions for Data communications products.